Lessons I Learned from My Chocolate Lab

Now, if you are expecting a heartwarming story about how my dog taught me to enjoy simplicity, love unconditionally and live in the moment...you are going to be disappointed. Godiva, my chocolate lab was by all standards, a naughty dog.

Godiva at 11 Weeks

She came to us as most puppies do, a squirmy eight week old bundle of canine. But unlike my previous Golden puppies, instead of a cuddly bundle of blonde fur with a cold black nose and shining dark eyes, whose mission was to cover your face in puppy kisses, Godiva was dark and sleek with liquid brown eyes that seemed much older than her two month old body. She neither required or offered any affection. She was quite content to sit under a table and observe the world go by. It was as if she had the soul of a cat trapped in a dog's body. We acknowledged that her behavior was unexpected but assumed she would come around after she got accustomed to the family.

As she grew she learned to walk on a leash, but never very cooperatively, even after months of training with a professional  and practicing with us. She didn't like being pet or groomed and often went into her crate to sleep rather than stay close by to the family. We enrolled her in Doggy Day Care so she would socialize with other dogs, and although she was never a problem, she seemed to prefer her own company to that of her canine companions. Again, we found her behavior odd and disappointing but assumed eventually she would enjoy being part of the family.

There was one thing that made Godiva happy... destruction. It was impossible to leave her alone, uncrated, for even the shortest amount of time. It didn't matter if someone was home or she was alone,  she had to be constantly supervised or contained lest she destroy almost anything in her path. She could shred an entire roll of toilet paper, rummage through the garbage and empty out the laundry basket in the time it took to go get the mail. Nothing was safe...books on bookshelves, furniture, windowsills, chair railing, carpeting, plants, basket, shoes...anything within her reach was an article ripe for destruction. The striking thing that unlike any dog I'd ever known, she never showed remorse for what she'd done. No hangdog expression, no skulking off to her crate. She seemed totally unaware of her bad behavior. We tried an endless stream of toys, balls, Frisbees, bones...nothing seemed to appeal to her as much as chair legs, books, newspapers and shoes. We consulted vets and trainers, read countless web articles and training books...We hoped that she was going through an extended puppyhood and would soon grow out of it.

One day when she was a little more than a year old, the final blow was delivered.  I went to the garage to look for a tool. I was gone for no more than five minutes. When I left, Godiva was sound asleep in her unlocked crate...when I returned I heard her gleefully running around on the upper level...I'd heard that sound before and I knew she had found something new to tear to shreds...In this case she had pulled several cookbooks from the kitchen shelf and shredded them to pieces.  My grandmother's sixty year old Czech cookbook, one of my most cherished possessions was laid to waste. 

It was then that I knew that this relationship had no hope for resolution. It was time to find Godiva a new home. Eventually she went to a farm in southwestern Virginia where I believe she runs free and happily digs holes and shreds old newspapers to her heart's content.

So what lesson did Godiva teach me? That no matter how hard you try, sometimes you simply cannot change another's  behavior. Sometimes you can't make a relationship work no matter how much you want it to. That sometimes you just have to step away, acknowledge it's over and try to move on with as little hurt as you can...